Why Lindsay Lohan’s Downfall Makes My Life Better

I’m not one of those celebrity- obsessed people. Most weekends when I go to brunch with my girlfriends, there will be a good 40 percent of the conversation that will go over my head because of my lack of interest in “The Real Housewives” of this city or that city, the results of Dancing with the Stars, or the personal endeavors of someone else about whom I could give a rat’s ass. However, I do have one addiction, one person whose ongoing demise and downward spiral that I can’t live without: Lindsay Lohan.

I never truly understood what the phrase “misery loves company” meant, until I found myself literally feeding off the horrific downfall of the former talented celebrity (I’d say actress, but that doesn’t seem to be appropriate anymore). Like a moth to a flame, I scour the internet in search of Lohan-related fodder to pacify the disdain for my own life. I could get into the particulars of how I don’t have a job and haven’t had one in almost a year, or how my heart was recently broken by a love, but in a world of so much suffering, it seems insulting to take up space with my entitled, bourgeois complaints. I know I’ll land a job eventually, and I know that in the not- so distant future, I will forget Christoffer’s – um, I mean, “that guy who ruined my life” – name and move onward…but Lindsay, well, she doesn’t have that option. She’s pretty much doomed, and doomed publicly. My breakdown was behind closed doors with friends verbally bitch- slapping some sense into me.

Watching Lindsay come apart at the seams is like chewing on a sticky-sweet candy that you actually don’t like the taste of, but can’t stop eating anyway, because there’s something addictive about the sensation it gives your tongue; the way it numbs your teeth and cheeks… there’s something so gorgeous about it. Her attempt to be mature and responsible is laughable and her overall arrogant behavior is practically an art form in everything one shouldn’t do if they ever want to be taken seriously again. Who goes to court with “Fuck U” painted on her middle finger? I know the one time I went to court for drinking in public, I spent the ten minutes crying and begging not to go to jail while the judge tried to tell me I couldn’t go to jail for sucking off a Corona in Bushwick at 3 AM – although I am pretty sure he judged me for the brand of beer, because he did ask me, more than once, “A Corona, huh?”

Lindsay is better than any car wreck. A car wreck is a piece of crumbled- up metal with the results a mystery that you happen to drive by on the highway, while Lindsay is someone we’ve all watched since her days in The Parent Trap. The world has watched her stumble, trip and fall on her face and instead of picking up the pieces with grace and elegance, she’s downed another fifth of vodka and done it again. And while I’m the first one to admit vodka is a temporary solution to any problem, there’s only so long you can stay under that cloud of alcohol- induced haze; you have to throw it up, you have to toss the bottle, you need to find the beauty and lessons learned in your lowest moments, and crawl, even with bruised knees, back up the ladder of life and hang on to each rung with everything you have until you reach the next one. If you slip a bit, you don’t fucking let go, you dangle for a second, then keep on moving up. And while my heart aches and I feel like my life is in shambles, at least I know this; Lindsay doesn’t, so in this one realization alone, I feel so much better about myself. Lindsay’s constant fuckups are my lifeline to happiness.

Unlike Lindsay, I have a strong support network. Neither one of my parents would ever try to throw me under the bus to make a quick buck or score yet another free ice cream cake from Carvel. I have friends who love me for me and not what I can give them, because honestly, these days, I can’t give them much but a bunch of tears and sarcastic commentary on the attire of the people at the table next to us. Perhaps Lindsay never really did have a chance; Perhaps I shouldn’t be indulging in her demise with such delight, but whoever said projection was a bad thing, was never the one behind the machine.

Now someone cue the Gloria Gaynor while I get back to my Lindsay Lohan research; I’m feeling bad about myself and need yet another quick fix.

very funny, love it! there is something satisfying in seeing her get a good kick in the rear. i hope they don’t release her after like a day because of over crowding or some other bs reason. i’m looking forward to hearing the stories from the inside as she unravels even more, but then again if i had her parents i think i would have been dead already.